Europe 1 with AFP 6:20 p.m., March 30, 2022, modified at 6:20 p.m., March 30, 2022

The United States has imposed financial sanctions on suppliers to Iran's ballistic missile program following an Iranian-led missile attack on Erbil, Iraq.

The United States "will not hesitate to target those who support Iran's ballistic missile program," said US Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson. 

The United States on Wednesday imposed financial sanctions on suppliers to Iran's ballistic missile program, following an attack claimed by Tehran's Revolutionary Guards in Iraqi Kurdistan.

These measures show that the United States "will not hesitate to target those who support Iran's ballistic missile program", even as it tries to reach a compromise to save the Iran nuclear deal, has said. U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson said in a statement.

"We will also work with other partners in the region to hold Iran to account for its actions, including its flagrant violations of the sovereignty of its neighbours," he added.

These sanctions target Iranian national Mohammad Ali Hosseini and his "network of companies" as providers of the controversial program.

Their potential assets in the United States will be frozen and access to the American financial system will be barred.

Firmness

They "follow the missile attack carried out by Iran against Erbil, Iraq, on March 13", explained the Treasury.

This attack was claimed by the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, who assured that they were targeting a "strategic center" belonging to Israel, its sworn enemy, in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The sanctions come as the United States seems close to an agreement with Iran during the indirect negotiations which have been held for almost a year in Vienna to resuscitate the moribund agreement supposed to prevent Tehran from acquiring the bomb. atomic.

As part of these talks, the Iranians are demanding that the Americans remove the Revolutionary Guards from their blacklist of "foreign terrorist organizations".

But the American right and Israel have warned Washington against such a decision.

The American government may therefore have wanted to demonstrate its firmness through these new sanctions to show that it will maintain, even in the event of a nuclear agreement, its pressure on Iran to cease its "destabilizing activities" in the Middle -East.